Seven-day rolling means and why weekly readings mislead posts 91–120
This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
Day-to-day body mass varies by more than a kilogram on hydration, glycogen and gut contents alone. A weekly reading is one noisy sample of that distribution.
On post #92 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
I would keep seven-day rolling and the decision it usually gets used for separate in this thread. They are related and they are not the same question, and merging them is why the last one went badly.
Seven-day rolling looks different depending on whether you are reading the primary literature or the summaries of it, and the difference is not in our favour.
Weighing daily and reporting weekly is a better protocol than weighing weekly, because it separates the measurement frequency from the reporting frequency.
This is the answer, and the reason it is the answer is the more useful part.
Worth separating two things that post #96 runs together.
Having read the whole seven-day rolling thread before replying: the question in the first post has not actually been answered yet, and three of us have answered a nearby one instead.
Second this, and I would have said it less carefully.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
On seven-day rolling the community has more anecdote than the confidence in this thread implies, and I include my own contribution in that.
Agreed, and I will stop repeating the version of this I had been repeating.
Small methodological point on seven-day rolling: repeating a measurement is cheap and resolves most of what is being argued about here at no cost to anyone.
Seasonal patterns: some people report weight loss is slower in winter than summer. Body composition and activity changes might contribute. Noting the season is useful context.
I have said this before in a thread nobody could find, so it is worth repeating.
An honest declaration on seven-day rolling: I have a prior here and it is strong enough that you should weight what I say downward. Stating it rather than hiding it.
One caution on seven-day rolling: everything above assumes the underlying documentation is what it claims to be. That assumption is doing real work and is rarely stated.
State the method before the numbers. Same scale, same time of day, same conditions — without that a series is a collection of readings rather than a measurement.
Picking up post #109: that is the part I would want checked first.
Reframing seven-day rolling slightly, because I think the disagreement is about the question rather than the answer. If the question is "does it happen", yes. If it is "how often", nobody here knows.
My understanding of seven-day rolling is a few years old and may have been superseded. If it has been, I would genuinely like to know rather than keep repeating it.
I read post #113 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.
Day-to-day body mass varies by more than a kilogram on hydration, glycogen and gut contents alone. A weekly reading is one noisy sample of that distribution.
Post #117 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
Weighing daily and reporting weekly is a better protocol than weighing weekly, because it separates the measurement frequency from the reporting frequency.
Worth saying I have only my own numbers here, and n is small.
Second-hand on seven-day rolling, so weight it accordingly — someone whose method I trust told me this and I have not verified it myself.
I have three months of notes on seven-day rolling and the honest summary is that the trend is real and the week-to-week numbers are noise. I nearly drew the opposite conclusion from the first fortnight.